DEREK Simpson, the Unite co-leader, was brought onto the Andrew Marr Show last Sunday to deliberately attempt to undermine the struggle in the trade unions to defeat the Tory-LibDem coalition’s savage cuts by a general strike that removes the coalition.
His introduction by James Landale was like that of a straight man in a comedy duo. He was welcomed as a man who’s ‘accused ministers of declaring war on working people with their spending cuts and possible changes to public sector pensions. He says it reminds him of the 1980s.
So will the unions respond with 80s-style industrial action? Derek Simpson is with me now.’
The scene was set so that the audience would expect to hear a ‘yes’ – the actual negative response was meant to be like an ice-cold shower for an angry working class.
Simpson said that he thought that the government would welcome a showdown with the working class.
He said: ‘Well, I actually think that the government, the Conservatives particularly, would love me to say that there’s going to be a winter of discontent because what that would do is move the whole emphasis to industrial militancy and away from the cuts. I see that people will wake up to what this government is really about and our job is to enhance that process, speed that process.’
Simpson considers that the working class does not even know what is happening, and that the best thing it can do is to behave like ‘Turkeys at Xmas’ time, while he gets on with the job of explaining and explaining, so that in five years time the government will be voted out.
When asked what is his union going to do about the savage cuts he persisted: ‘Well, I think the first thing is we’re going to try and educate our members and people generally to what’s really happening . . .’
Simpson continued: ‘It’s astonishing how history is repeating itself. And you can have all the experts on a programme like this, giving you the facts and the figures, but the truth of the matter is that I’ll predict again within a year you’ll find difficulty in finding anybody admitting that they voted Conservative. The LibDems are already in somewhat of a disarray as a result of here we’ve voted for a government that we didn’t really want and policies that we didn’t really vote for.’
Simpson obviously has not heard about five-year parliaments and the 66 per cent majorities that are needed for a dissolution of parliament. The job of the working class, meanwhile, is not to provoke the Tories but wait for the next election – by which time we will all be paupers!
When asked: ‘What is Unite going to say’ at the TUC when other unions are calling for a day of action on October 20, he replied: ‘Well, a day of action is a focal point, it’s not exactly a winter of discontent, and it’s part of a process of drawing attention to some of the real issues . . .’
He does not mind a bit of a protest – but nothing serious, mind you, because ‘I mean we don’t have the volatile nature of the French or the Greeks,’ he said.
In fact, Simpson agrees that there must be spending cuts but ‘over a planned and proper period’.
It is clear that he and the entire reformist leadership of the TUC have not the slightest intention of seriously fighting the Tory cuts and closures, and stopping them by bringing down the government.
This entire trade union bureaucracy needs reminding that 140 years before the French revolution, the English revolution, led by a revolutionary army, beheaded a King that ruled by ‘divine right’, who had god on his side. You cannot get much more revolutionary than that!
This entire trade union bureaucracy also needs removal and replacement by a revolutionary leadership that will bring down the coalition with a general strike and go forward to a workers government and socialism.
